Shadow the Hedgehog - First Class
by Taranea
Summary: He can outrun a missile. He can shoot a man at a 100 paces. He just can't do his math homework...In a world where Shadow, Maria and Gerald survived the ARK massacre, the Ultimate Lifeform now struggles to get used to ordinary life. Only people at his new school are clearly insane, Maria needs protection from dating, and a new threat looms - Welcome to the Robotnik household! :D
1. For Whom the Bell Tolls

HI THERE and welcome to another one of my fanfics! Fair word of warning, the setting for this story is a High School, BUT! (HEY! Come BACK!) I make it usually my personal sport to take terrible, terrible AU settings and tell a story that's both adventure and comedy with it, sticking largely to Sonic games canon, and keeping everybody in character. Anyone wondering why on Earth canon Sonic would ever bother sticking around in friggin High School in the first place, rest assured, there's an explanation:P

That said, hope you're all looking forward to domestic sibling fluff between Shadow and Maria, an Ultimate Lifeform completely unequipped to deal with normal life, and Sonic driving everyone up the walls, as usual. Here we GO!

* * *

><p><strong>Shadow the Hedgehog: First Class<strong>

_by Taranea_

**Chapter 1: For Whom the Bell Tolls **

Shadow's first thought was that blowing up the class room was not likely to help.

"Good morning everyone! This is your new classmate for the final year," Ms Ebony, a young black cat, was cheerfully addressing the teenagers seated at the tables in front of her. Next to her stood a black hedgehog, who somehow looked far less happy with this situation than she.

"He has been enrolled in this school long-distance, and now come to stay since his family have stopped their travelling," Ebony told her multi-coloured charges, most of whom were gazing at the new arrival with various levels of interest. The most curious seemed to be some of the girls, a pink hedgehog further back and a red-furred vixen in the front - but _also_ some of the boys, most notably a brown-haired human next to a blonde girl in a wheelchair. The only ones not appearing particularly excited by the presentation were a half-dozed off crocodile next to a chameleon, as well as a bored-looking blue hedgehog all the way at the back. Ebony's enthusiasm did not seem to let itself be deterred by the latter. "Please help make this a great year for our new student. Now, why don't you introduce yourself to the class..."

There was pause, and Shadow suddenly became aware of how now everyone, including the teacher, was looking at him, waiting.

Somehow, surviving a military raid aboard a space station in retrospect now seemed a lot easier than this.

"...hello," he managed. "My name is Shadow. Shadow Robotnik."

And the whispering started up almost immediately.

Shadow frowned. He _had_ heard that teenagers were prone to gossiping, but he hadn't thought it would be _this_ bad. The classroom consisted of 5 rows of two-seater tables all facing the blackboard he stood in front of, and contained perhaps two dozen students in total, most of whom were now exchanging glances with their neighbours or bending over to talk to them. The black hedgehog's artifically engineered ears twitched as he caught various fragments - 'huh, did you hear that, a _human_ name' as well as 'Look at his quills, yeah, _totally_ dyed' (and also one bit that sounded like 'OMG, HOT!' which he sincerely hoped had been a mistake). Really, all he wanted was to be seen as normal and be ignored, instead of standing out as the constant freaky experiment side-show he had been most of his life so far.

_Well, that already seems to be going brilliantly. _

For some reason, at the mention of his name, even the blue hedgehog, who had been sitting at the back of the class and had been completely ignoring everything in favour of gazing out of the window, now also gave him a thoroughly freaked-out stare.

"Uh...where are you from, Shadow? Please tell us about yourself," Ms Ebony tried again, as she could apparently sense that introductions were going slightly awkwardly.

"Um," Shadow managed. "I don't actually want to talk about that." _I also don't even know how much I'm even allowed to say. _

If it became known that his artificial creation and his creator's secret pact with Black Doom were the reason for the massacre aboard the ARK over three months ago, for example, he was pretty sure he could kiss his newly-gained citizen status goodbye.

"But Shadow, people want to get to know you!"

"Great. They can read the half a million research papers published on me."

"What was that?" Ms Ebony asked, sounding slightly concerned.

"Nothing." Shadow cleared his throat, sadly aware of how abyssimally this was going. "Can't I just take my seat? Please?" he tried. He _really_ wanted to avoid people asking questions or making speculations, and the less info he had to give out about his background, the better.

The feline teacher sighed. "Well, I know we're a rather...lenient school...and I also know _Sticks_ 'introduced' herself by bringing shrunken heads for everyone," she muttered under her breath, before then turning to Shadow again, "so tell you what. If you don't want to talk about where you're from, how about you tell us about your family? Then you can take your seat."

Shadow, recognizing a peace offer when he saw one, nodded.

"I live together with my sister and her grandfather. We only moved to Station Square last week."

This, again, prompted some more whispers. This time, Shadow heard someone (rather excitedly) asking 'Oh wow, he has a _mysterious past_! Do you think he was in prison? Are those_ prison shoes_?!' The black hedgehog stared at the speaker. It appeared to be a sort of overexcited...orange...brown...girl...thing.

When she noticed him staring at him, she squeaked and vanished under her desk.

Shadow heaved a very deep sigh.

_Oh, brother. _

And yesterday, it had all sounded like it wouldn't be so bad...

xxx

"Oh, Shadow, we've got our own house now! It's going to be SO exciting!"

"Hnh," the black hedgehog replied. To tell the truth, he wasn't actually so sure about it - they had moved into this house only yesterday and it had all gone so fast.

"Grandpa, can I have the room with the attached bathroom? Shadow hates bathing anyway!"

"If your brother is fine with it, sure. But I don't want bunches of quills backing up the drain in the communal bathroom either, got it?"

"You shouldn't have designed me with quills that come loose in the shower, then," Shadow replied smoothly, and earned himself a (predictably) flat stare from his creator.

"One more word, young hedgehog, and your room is going to be the dog shed in the yard."

Professor Gerald Robotnik was a world-reknowned scientist with an IQ of 300, who had uncountable papers and revolutionary inventions to his name, the latest of which was indeed Project: Shadow, the Ultimate Lifeform and also the cure designed to combat the deadly condition of Neuro-Immune-Deficiency-Syndrome – NIDS.

A man who knew how to handle two rapidly growing teenagers, he was not.

"Grandpa! We _just_ got Shadow his citizen papers, you're _not_ going to chain him up in the yard," Maria protested, which of course, also was true.

When Shadow had been created aboard the ARK, he had been deemed an experiment rather than a sapient being, but had still managed to have a nearly decent (if somewhat strange) childhood growing up alongside Maria, both of them being raised by her grandfather. However, after a military raid aboard the same space station, his and Maria's escape capsule had landed in GUN's custody, the soldiers intent on capturing Shadow and killing Maria. Fortunately, Gerald had survived the raid as well and managed to launch an attack in time to free Shadow from the clutches of GUN _before_ they could freeze and reprogram him as a weapon of mass destruction – and then he had _also_ managed to save Maria's life through an emergency bone marrow transplant from the immune system of the Ultimate Lifeform, thereby curing her fatal disease forever.

You could say that Professor Gerald Robotnik was a pretty swell guy.

Afterwards, getting Shadow recognized as an actual citizen rather than a laboratory animal had been a bit of a bureaucratic hassle, but Gerald had managed even that (as long as they agreed to be silent on the whole corrupt-leadership-board-at-GUN matter, anyway).

Eventually, Gerald had announced that they could finally move to their new home, a house he had bought in Station Square, where he'd be taking up a post as a professor at their university. Maria was also beyond thrilled since _she_ would also be starting at the same university as a freshman –and it was only Shadow who thought he could spot the tiniest flaw in the plan.

"I am to go...to _High school_?"

The hedgehog had stared at both his creator as well as his sister like an agoraphobic left behind on the open sea.

Gerald had nodded and Maria had smiled. "It's only for a year, Shadow. You _do_ want to go to university, right? With me?"

"Yes, but..." Shadow managed, then trailed off. He did want to go to university, that much was true, but mostly because he honestly had no idea what else to do with his life.

"I already completed my high school education," Maria reminded him. "_You_ still have a year to go."

"I _know_," the black hedgehog replied with some irritation. Maria, grandchild of his creator and youngest of the Robotnik line, was of course a genius like the rest of her family, and, despite only being 15, had already been offered several scholarships at different universities.

"But...can't I just be homeschooled by you? Like you did with both of us aboard the ARK?" Shadow asked hopefully, turning to his creator.

"I'm glad you enjoyed my tutoring, Shadow, but not only will I be vastly more busy with my new post at the university, but I also think it will do you good to have some more social interaction and learn more about the world outside," Gerald explained patiently.

The look the hedgehog gave him conveyed very succinctly that Shadow would like to take 'social interaction' out back and shoot it, but Gerald had not let himself be deterred.

"No, you will be starting school tomorrow, Shadow, just like I will be taking Maria to her first day at university. Work hard and I will be able to take you with us next year, too, alright?"

"...fine," Shadow said, in the tone of a hedgehog who knew when he was defeated.

"Don't look so glum, it's gonna be great!"

"Yeah. Maybe." It was safe to say that Shadow wasn't the most gregarious hedgehog by nature, but it was also somewhat hard for him to not to let himself be infected by enthusiasm of his human sister. No. He would take High School, much as anything else in his life, as a trial and he would not let himself be beaten by it.

If present-Shadow had been able to communicate with his past-self from yesterday, he would have smacked him.

xxx

"Very well, then. Please have a seat, Shadow," Ms Ebony said, and Shadow correctly guessed she only did that because everything else would probably have gotten her persecuted for animal cruelty.

"There's a free seat next to Amy, you can take that one." The black cat pointed toward an empty chair between the pink hedgehog and the classroom wall, second to last row from the back. He nodded and made his way over. Most of the other students were quietly talking now, only occasionally shooting glances his way, which Shadow was fine with. If he could stay at this level of obscurity for the rest of the year, he would probably be okay.

Walking past, Shadow also noted that although the desks were all the same height, the seats were adjustable for the size of the student; the legs of the sapients – _Mobians_, they called themselves, he reminded himself – were dangling in the air or set on a small step embedded in the chairs, while the humans were sitting with their feet resting on the floor.

Well.

There were a few exceptions – some of the sapients, like the large green crocodile in the front row, or the giant purple cat, were noticeably bigger and at five foot something about the same height as a teenage human girl.

Shadow arrived at his seat and gave the pink hedgehog a cursory nod as he sat himself down. He wasn't very experienced yet at estimating sapients' ages, but she seemed to be slightly younger than some of the older teenagers in the class. Gerald had said this was a very small school, so some of the years could be pretty mixed. Shadow's fake birth certificate designated him as sixteen, so this girl was perhaps...fifteen?

"HI! I'm Amy Rose! Nice to MEET you!"

Shadow winced slightly at the pitch of the voice and mentally corrected that estimate to fourteen-at-the-most.

"Hello," he ventured, slightly wary. Amy was pretty, he supposed, wearing a red dress with a matching headband over shoulder-length pink quills, and her jade eyes were a fetching contrast to her chosen clothing. Nevertheless, the girl also seemed to exude a kind of bubbliness radiation that Shadow found himself slightly inequipped to deal with.

"It's really cool to meet another hedgehog with a human name," Amy informed him. "I grew up in an orphanage run by humans, so they gave me one. I like it, though, even if it's a bit rare for a Mobian. Now they're allowing me to live on my own, which is really great. Ms Vanilla checks up on me regularly, so I don't get too lonely. She's really nice! Her daughter goes to school here, too. You said you didn't live with your parents, did you also grow up in a home?"

Shadow blinked. He didn't have much experience in communicating with people other than Maria or Gerald, and talking to Amy felt like talking to three hedgehogs at once.

"...no," he finally managed. "No, I've always lived with my, er..." he paused.

Somehow, 'creator' would probably sound a bit weird.

"...with my sister and her grandfather", he repeated, not mentioning that he narrowly almost _had_ ended up as an orphan if the GUN assault on the ARK had only gone a bit differently. "They're humans. They, uh, adopted me. That's why I have their surname."

"Yeah, your _surname_..." Amy suddenly asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Say, do you have any relation to -?"

"Ms Rose, as much as I appreciate you making our new student feel right at home, do you think you could possibly wait until I have finished the lesson? Thank you."

Amy squeaked. "Sorry, Ms Ebony!" Shadow could also see her immediately blush and fling her hands over her mouth, while some of the rest of the class was now snickering at them. For some reason, Shadow could now also feel the heat rising in his own cheeks – what the hell, this wasn't supposed to happen – and then _also_ caught the gaze of that blue hedgehog from the window seat who was now staring at him suspiciously. As soon as Amy noticed that Shadow was looking at the blue guy and turned her head around to look at _him_, however, the hedgehog had turned with sonic speed and was now suddenly staring disinterestedly out of the window again.

It was at this point that Shadow decided he probably should never, ever, have come to this school in the first place, mostly because all of its students seemed to be about six years old.

He turned with a sigh, gave a low-grade scowl to anyone who was still trying to hide an amused grin when looking at him and tried to focus on the black board, wishing a bit that Maria was here.

_I knew this was bad idea. _

Shadow let his head sink onto the desk, hoping against hope that at least this day wouldn't feature any more events that would draw attention to him and lead others to ask more questions he was disinclined to answer.

This, of course, was totally not what would happen.

_To be continued..._

* * *

><p>Hey everyone! Still around? Awesome. :D<p>

That said, hope you liked the first chapter! If there's anyone around who's a new reader, btw, this fic is a stand-alone, meaning you can read it on its own, but if you want to know more about Shadow and Maria's past, have a look at my (completed) story 'Life Could Have Been So Different', which covers Shadow's childhood aboard the ARK, keeping mostly as close to canon as possible.

So far so good, though, next chapter should be up fairly quickly (for Taranea-standards, anyway...), meanwhile you can have a vote on the character poll on my profile, and, most importantly, if you read, please review! I gotta know which parts you liked so I can write more of them ;)


	2. Lunch Break

**Anonymous Review Replies! **

**Clockwork: **You bet it's her, I'm sure writing her will be a lot of fun. ;p And yup, totally Chris. Not sure yet what his fate's gonna be, but we'll see. XD Glad you like it!

**XxShadowxX**: Preeeeetty sure Shadow's only here because otherwise Maria would be upset XD And oh gods, yes. He's going to need a *lot* of luck for this fic. As does Chris. Maybe one of them will have it :p

**SonicDragon1302**: Glad to hear it! More coming already! :D

**DEV**: Hahah, ja, und das ist erst der Anfang^^° High School verlangt natürlich nach einer *Menge* an Statisten...:p (und Shadow freut sich sicherlich über jeden Exzentriker, dem man ihm in den Klassenraum steckt, right? Right? XD) Was Sonics Hintergrund in dieser Story und seinen Grund für die Anwesenheit in der Klasse angeht - hah, das soll er später selber erzählen, aber ich denke, dass der Grund schon eins der wichtigsten Motive überhaupt für Sonic ist ;) Etwas mehr zu seiner Rolle gibt's auch prompt dieses Kapitel :D Nach, äh, jeder Menge Shadow-whump. XD Freut mich sehr, dich an Bord zu haben! :3

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Two: Lunch Break <strong>

"_It's so cool to meet another hedgehog with a human name!" _

That was what Amy had said. Shadow knew this wasn't quite correct.

Shadow's name was a strange mixture – he had a first and last name like a human, yes, but he was also named, like it was a cultural tradition among sapients, for an object – a shadow. Maria had given him the name when he had only been a few weeks old, and like a lot of things his sister had gifted him with, he treasured it - even if it, like everything else about him, made him a strange hybrid that was neither quite human nor entirely Mobian.

_Still, better as a name than my other designation UL 2/23_, Shadow thought dryly. That was the label he had received when he had still been nothing but a lump of cells in a petri dish, short for 'Ultimate Lifeform, Series 2, Version 23' – a morbid reminder that there had been 22 artificial hedgehogs before him that had never survived the experiments performed on them. And a whole host of previous experimental lifeforms in Series 1, when Gerald had still tried to use lizards. But his creator never seemed too fond to talk about that, so Shadow had never pushed, caring little for any creature that wasn't part of his immediate family anyway.

Next, the lesson began with a roll call, but to Shadow, who had never been used to having direct contact with more than four people on a first name basis, the wild mixture of human and sapient names soon blurred into one, anyway. He managed to remember a few of the more normal, non-Mobian ones – Chris, Helen, Danny, Elise, Julian, and even a girl called Shahra – but most of the rest of his classmates' identities was soon lost on him. (Even though Amy for some reason warned him not to get too close to this Chris character).

Afterwards, the lesson dragged on. Shadow stared at the clock. He knew most of the content anyway – Gerald's education had been thorough – and so resigned himself to studying the students once more instead. There were approximately twenty of them in the class, maybe a dozen of them sapients, the rest human kids. It really seemed to be a wild mixture; not only did the humans have all sorts of skin- and haircolours, the furry (and feathery, and scaly) population of the class room consisted of all sorts of shapes, colours and sizes as well. He, his neighbour Amy and the strange blue guy (_Sony? Something like that..._) at the window were the only three hedgehogs in the room, the other seats being taken up by a pair of green and purple birds, then a strange, orange-brown, presumably female thing that for some reason had a boomerang lying on her desk, then a rather large purple cat, something that looked like a mixture between a coyote and a wig store, a girl rabbit, a red-furred vixen, and finally the strange pair of the also incongruously large crocodile and a magenta chameleon sitting next to him.

All in all, Shadow had trouble to feel like he was at a school and not at the zoo.

_No. Focus. You can't think like that. They are normal people. You are even one of them,_ Shadow reminded himself unwillingly. Having grown up amongst humans, most of whom had thought sapients like him little more than animals, it was a bit hard not to somehow hold these attitudes themselves, nonsensical though it was. (Maria had actually called it 'internalized speciesism' once, but her brother hadn't really been listening). Shadow let his gaze travel back to the black cat Ms Ebony who was still writing on the blackboard and he could already feel his mind drifting off again, when suddenly-

"_Rolling around at the speed of sound-! Got places to go, gotta follow my-"_

"Hello?"

Shadow turned. The blue hedgehog at the window had apparently just answered his phone and was now speaking into it as if this was the most normal thing in the world in the middle of a class.

"Hmm. Oh. Yeah. Okay, on it." He pressed the call on the mobile away, then looked up at the teacher. "Uh, teach, I gotta go, it's -"

Ms Ebony's only response was a weary sigh as she waved the blue hedgehog off. " It's fine. You may go."

"Cool! See you next week!"

And then he jumped out the window.

Shadow stared after him.

Was this _normal_?

He gave a brief, inconspicuous glance around. Absolutely no one seemed to mind, (and for a moment the black hedgehog had a brief paranoia attack if he had even _imagined_ the entire thing, if it weren't for the still deserted window desk)

Well. The only _other_ one who was showing a reaction of sorts was Amy, who was staring after the blue lunatic with a dreamy-eyed expression that suggested she probably wouldn't be paying attention to the rest of the lesson.

_Well. That makes two of us_, Shadow thought, resigning himself to staring straight ahead and trying not to think up excuses already for why he would need stay home tomorrow.

xxx

After what had seemed like an eternity, finally the bell rang, signaling the lunch break.

"Excuse me." Shadow stood up and walked out past Amy before she could say anything, or any of the other students could approach him. This was all a bit too much. He needed a place to calm down, there were entirely too many people in this class, in this building, in this school. He wasn't used to this. Maybe a bathroom break would help. Bathrooms were supposed to be private places, weren't they?

He pushed open the door of the men's room, which fortunately was only occupied by one other boy at the urinals and made to head for one of the stalls. What he hadn't expected to happen was the teenager glancing over his shoulder, and then, seeing Shadow, go boggle-eyed and whirl around.

"What the hell? What are _you_ doing in here?!"

Shadow, much like any introvert unused to the sacred silence of the bathroom interrupted, for a moment felt slightly at a loss. Then, annoyance fortunately took over.

"It's a _bathroom_. What do you _think_ I would be doing in here, tapdancing?"

That seemed to throw the boy a little, who stared at him for a moment absolutely mystified, but then recovered remarkably quickly.

"What? No, dude, I mean what are you doing in _here_? This is the _human_ bathroom. The one for you guys is one door over." He jabbed a thumb toward the side as he yanked his jeans back up.

"The human...oh. _Oh_," Shadow began, at the same time again feeling embarrassment rising inside himself like a shameful balloon.

"But if you're going in there, you can actually clear something up for me," the other teenager said, at the same time giving Shadow an enthusiastic grin, "See, me and my mates have been wondering, is it actually true that lizard guys have _two_-?"

A very wide-eyed Shadow was rather glad the _bang_! of the door on his way out had cut the boy's last word off.

_Freaks. Freaks, the lot of them._

He glanced at the other doors next to the human men's bathroom, of which there were another two. Both of them had symbols, one of them showing something that looked like a silhouette of two elongated triangles curved toward one another, and the other a sign that more resembled a spiral.

For a moment, Shadow considered simply going into the door with a wheelchair symbol on it on the simple basis that there was only one of them.

Luckily, at that moment the female rabbit from his class walked past him and entered into the spiral room, and Shadow therefore selected the other one, probably for the first time in his life hoping nothing more that the room he was about to enter would contain urinals.

When it did, he was actually pleasantly surprised – apparently, the fact that this was a room for sapients meant that everything in here was just a tad smaller and easier to use for people only three feet tall.

(He was _less_ pleasantly surprised at the smell, of course, which was likely to be the same no matter where the High School and which species its students).

The Ultimate Lifeform sighed and stepped over to the sink, glad that no one was in here at least, pulled off his gloves and splashed some water into his face. He needed to calm down. He couldn't lose his cool already just because there were so many..._people_ here. The Chaos Energy inside him was still curling and fizzing underneath his skin, stirred into uneasy, wary movement by the nervousness of its master. Shadow was gripping the sides of the sink, staring into the mirror before him and tried to make a conscious effort to suppress it. The last thing he needed were sparks and flames of it escaping, burning along his fingers or hissing from his shoes – that would make people suspicious of him for sure.

_Rest. There is no enemy here for you to fight, _he told it, and could feel it settling down again, curling up in his chest, close to his heart, like a protective dog called back and returning to slumber. When Shadow was fairly sure he probably wouldn't accidentally unleash a Chaos Spear upon any unsuspecting students, he stepped out of the bathroom again into the corridor. Now it was lunch time, wasn't it? That meant he should probably follow the masses of teenagers who were presumably all heading for the canteen. He had just turned around to make himself part of the procession, when a voice made him halt.

"Hey! Newbie!"

Shadow stopped in his tracks and turned around. Behind him stood the green bird from his home room class and the purple female that had sat next to him. Their expressions seemed anything but friendly.

Shadow's eyes narrowed.

"My _name_ is-"

"Yeah, yeah, don't care for your name, hairball." The hawk waved him off, his tone a self-satisfied sneer. "Just wanted to tell you, we don't need another dirt-crawling mammal like you here, so you better know your place, alright? And don't you forget it!"

The avian snapped the last word, his beak shutting with a sharp clack only inches from Shadow's face as he and his partner walked past him, giving him a light shove with the shoulder as they did so. Shadow snarled instinctively, but caught himself just in time before he would have reached out to yank the hawk back by his head feathers and wring his bony neck until he would talk like Tweety the canary for a week. Gerald had told him this school had a low violence tolerance. He couldn't disappoint his family by giving a negative impression this early on. The black hedgehog shot a brief glance around, just to check if anybody around had noticed the brief confrontation, but the general hubbub seemed to have been entirely unaffected, the birds already swallowed up by the lunch-hungry crowd. Breathing a last, irritated huff through his nose, Shadow rejoined them; he had no idea _why_ the two had even picked on him, but he would still make it his mission not to stand out regardless.

xxx

The canteen. This was something he knew from his life aboard the ARK, at least. You got in line, grabbed a tray, and received whatever culinary abomination the kitchen crew had committed today. Shadow hadn't eaten often in the dining room aboard the space station, Maria only taking him there a couple of times when he had still been very young and not yet known to most of the station personal as a dangerous experiment, but he was still familiar with the basic logistics.

After he had received his lunch – ("Hedgehog, right? _Charlie, one insecti-carnivore, lactose-intolerant!_" the human woman behind the counter had hollered after only a cursory glance at him and then shoved a lasagna onto his tray before he could say anything) – he now found himself with a different problem altogether.

_Where to sit? _

The canteen's furniture consisted exclusively of large tables, seating at least ten each, and all of them already seemed to be occupied by various groups. Aboard the ARK, he had always eaten with Maria. Here, he knew no one.

His gaze briefly roamed over the dining hall – despite the school's inclusive policy, there weren't many tables that had both sapients and humans sharing it, only a few here and there. The other groups were fairly homogenous – the girl in the wheelchair from his class sat with five of the other humans at a table close to the counter, the green bird who had insulted him earlier had been joined by a purple swallow, grey albatross, blue hawk and a sunglass-wearing chicken at another one, and there also seemed to be a table populated entirely by shrimp and fish.

_I think Maria once mentioned something about how humans at some point in their history managed to separate themselves by skin colour. Seems like they have progressed to species now_, a dry voice in Shadow's head commented.

Not feeling like wandering around until he had found a table of hedgehogs (where he felt like he wouldn't belong anyway) Shadow had almost made up his mind to try his luck with one of the human/sapient mixed groups, when an already familiar voice called out to him.

"Hey! Hey, Shadow! Come sit with us!"

He turned around. Behind him, Amy and a few more people were waving at him from a table that still had a couple of empty seats.

_Well. At least that'd spare me the process of introducing myself. _

Shadow took a breath, and, forcing a marginally friendly expression on his face, made his way to one of the chairs.

"How're you holding up?" Amy asked, smiling at him as he sat. "School can be kinda overwhelming on the first day, huh? Sticks still doesn't like the canteen on some days, so when it's too crowded for her inside, she usually goes outside to hunt for her lunch."

"What?" Shadow managed, before his hypnotized gaze followed Amy's outstretched finger. The pink hedgehog was pointing outside the window, where, below some of the trees of the school's courtyard, the orange jungle badger girl from this morning appeared to be screaming and chasing after terrified feral squirrels with a boomerang.

Shadow gave Amy a look.

"Just so you know you have alternatives," the girl said with a bright smile.

Shadow at this point considered it perhaps hadn't been the best idea to sit down at this table.

"Hey, don't look so freaked out, she's a nice enough girl," Amy said, apparently interpreting his expression correctly. "She just grew up in the jungle, s'all."

"In the jungle," Shadow repeated.

"It happens," Amy shrugged. "This is what this school is for, anyway. A place for all of us who don't fit in anywhere else." She gave Shadow a smile that just for a moment reminded him too much of Maria and he quickly looked away, a bit spooked by the uncanny resemblance. Amy perhaps noticed, or else she simply remembered the others were there, for she next turned to the group. "But yeah, sorry, completely forgot! Marine, Mighty, this is the new student I told you about, Shadow! Shadow, I think you remember Espio and Vector?"

"Hello," Shadow managed, nodding at the two new faces – the first one, the raccoon, appeared to be somewhat younger than the rest, and the armadillo a bit older, more in line with the crocodile and chameleon. The armadillo called Mighty returned the greeting with an acknowledging nod and the racoon girl with a bright, enthusiastic grin and wave.

"No worries, we're all here because of a somewhat...spotty past, or because this is the only school that actually bothers to try and accommodate anybody not quite what they'd call normal," the crocodile said, giving Shadow a (somewhat disconcertingly) wide smile. "I run my own agency and them here's the only folks who give a croc a loose enough schedule that he can work with." He thumbed his chest. "Vector the Crocodile at your service - and these here are my business associates, Espio and Mighty. Our _other_ member is thankfully in the supervised preschool lunchtime programme."

"Right," Shadow replied, not sure what kind of 'agency' a teenaged croc imagined himself to be running, but he didn't say as much. Instead, it was Marine who now also piped up, smiling.

"Yeah, mate, this place is ripper! None a' the blokes in those other bodgy schools believed me when I said I wos a Captain in me home dimension, but them 'ere sure do!"

_Maria, you have enrolled me in a school of lunatics. I swear I will never forgive you for this. _

"Hey. Marine. Give the guy some space to breathe," the armadillo remarked calmly, glancing at Shadow with a somewhat understanding look.

"It's cool. Some of us are also here because we don't have folks to pay our school fees for us and here they treat you decently even if you're poor."

"Or if you're a warden of the state," Amy remarked with a slightly rueful smile, before she immediately brightened up again. "But you still have family, don't you, Shadow?"

"I – yeah. As I said, my sister Maria and her grandfather, Professor Gerald."

"Human names, huh? And they gave you a Mobian one?" Vector asked, curiously.

"They _are_ humans," Shadow pointed out with some irritation, and was rewarded with five pairs of eyes (sans Amy) immediately growing wide.

"Crikey! Really?!"

"Wait, since when-?"

"Does that mean your biological parents-?"

"I was adopted," Shadow cut them off. "I don't have any biological parents."

Marine frowned. "But _everyone_ has-"

"I don't. Trust me," Shadow said, repressing the impulse to give a snort none of them would be able to understand.

"Well, nobody is perfect," Mighty said, thereby ending the topic effectively. "And compared to a lot of people here, having any family at all is pretty lucky."

"True," Amy nodded. "Eggman's attacks have left a lot of people without their folks..."

"Speaking of which, Sonic's not here. Is it-?"

"No idea. He ran off during first period," Amy replied with a pout. "I wish he could leave for once not during school hours, so I could come, but noooo..."

"He wouldn't take you anyway," Mighty pointed out. "You know that."

"He so would! I'm his girlfriend!"

"Amy..." the armadillo was affecting the tone of an exasperated older brother, and Shadow felt his attention slipping away as the others were jumping from topic to topic in a seemingly random pattern. Truth be told, he was slightly curious about what on Earth had been going on this morning (although the way this school was run, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised if the answer was that the hedgehog simply had some sort of mental condition that required him to jump out of windows at regular intervals) but he also didn't want to look like he in anyway cared about the antics of what was obviously the class clown.

"- too dangerous."

"He takes _Tails_!"

"Only sometimes. And the kit can hold his own."

"And so can I! If _I_ hadn't stopped Gamma from -!"

"I would recommend for you to ignore them. This 'discussion' can go on for quite some time."

Shadow blinked. The purple chameleon had just spoken for the first time, his voice pleasantly low and smooth in comparison to the hedgehog and armadillo now caught in their increasingly exasperated, cryptic argument that was also taking up all the attention of Vector and Marine.

Shadow nodded. "Right. And you were...?"

"Espio the Chameleon." The reptile extended a gloved hand across the table. "And you're Shadow Robotnik. No relation to Dr. Ivo Robotnik, I presume?"

"...I don't know," Shadow frowned, aware that this was the third time in a row people had reacted strangely to his surname. There was something that twitched in his memory, but he couldn't quite recall what. "I'd have to ask Maria or the professor. Why?"

Espio gave him a strange look. "Well, the _reason_ should probably obvious," he replied. "But don't concern yourself in either case. If there's anything I know it's that you can't choose family." His tone became somewhat cynical at the last phrase, even if his expression didn't change. Then he cocked his head, as if declaring the topic closed, before Shadow could even ask what any of that was supposed to have meant. "But no matter. You're a hedgehog. Do you have any special abilities?"

_That_ seemed to catch the attention of the rest of the group again, and Marine immediately piped up.

"Strewth! Oh yeah! Tell us! You probably have _real_ ace powers, mate, roight? Roight?"

"...powers?" Shadow asked, once again feeling a bit uncomfortable as the entire group's attention was focused solely on him.

"Yeah, powers, dude!" Vector confirmed enthusiastically. "Mighty here's freakishly strong, Amy can do that hammer thing, and Espio's our agency's resident ninja meister!" The crocodile beamed with pride, while Espio's twitching eye probably told the world what he thought of the denomination 'ninja meister'.

"And I can build tinnies and proper boats!" Marine proclaimed. "I'm so smart ya wouldn't believe it!"

"And with hedgehogs it's really common, too," Amy said with a smile. "I mean, everybody knows about _Sonic_, of course, but the rest of us often have powers as well. Do you?"

Shadow blinked.

Somehow the answer 'I can manipulate spacetime to suit my whims' seemed a bit grand.

"Uh...I can..."

_Kill a man in less than two seconds. _

_Operate near any gun, rifle and other form of ranged weaponry you care to name. _

_Survive electrocution, suffocation and radiation that would wipe out any other form of existence on Earth. _

"...make...risotto?" Shadow tried, increasingly aware that not many of his skills would likely help him out when trying to appear 'normal' in the dining hall of a high school.

He wasn't quite sure whether he should be offended or not when Vector and Mighty immediately burst out into laughter, Marine yelled out 'awesome!' and Amy seemed to give him nothing but a sympathetic smile and a pat on his shoulder. Only Espio looked at him somewhat doubtfully, but didn't say anything.

"Hey, that's cool, Shadow, I like cooking, too. Maybe you can teach me sometime," Amy said, and Shadow for some reason briefly had to fight the feeling of just having received a consolation prize at the lottery of life. This entire day had been giving him nothing but one headache after another, and more questions than ever.

"Well, even without powers, there's lots of other stuff you can apply yourself to," Vector said with a generous gesture. "I mean, look at me, surviving just on my wits, taste, and good looks."

"What our deluded boss _means_ is that he is five feet tall and can bite most people in half," Mighty clarified smoothly, ignoring Vectors sputtering in the background. "Listen, being completely without powers as a smaller species can be tough. We know. And especially because this school takes in _everyone_ who might have...behaved less than stellar elsewhere..." he briefly looked to the side "...it's not always the cushiest place in the world. Especially as fresh meat, try not to go looking for trouble, alright?"

"...I'll do my best," Shadow ventured, even if he privately knew that so far, trouble had never had any problem with finding _him_.

"Yeah. Like, you should definitely stay clear of the Babylon Rogues," Amy said, her voice low as she gave a small nod and a surreptitious glance toward the table where the group of birds was seated. "They often try to pick on newcomers especially. Sonic used to be able to put a stop to it, before, but ever since the school cracked down on him...not so much."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," Shadow replied conversationally, at the same time trying not to pay any attention to the twinge of increasing annoyance he felt at his own rising curiosity about how this absent blue hedgehog kept popping up in the conversation in the most random ways and everyone seemed to be absolutely awed by him. Who was this guy, some local village celebrity?

But before curiosity could perhaps finally have gotten the better of him, the bell rang again, ending their lunch period and their conversation. After the others had showed him where he could dispose of his tray and leftovers, Shadow politely excused himself, mostly because instead of afternoon classes today, he had a scheduled evaluation exam for new students to determine whether he needed extra tutoring in subjects, or could perhaps be moved to Advanced Placement in others.

The Ultimate Lifeform hoped it wasn't too obvious that the result that he _really _desired was that he would never have to return to this asylum at all.

_To be continued..._

* * *

><p>...I'm sorry, Australians. I'm so, so sorry. I love your country, I loved living there, but I love hopelessly mangling accents even more. That said...<p>

There you go! Slightly longer than the first chapter, so I hope you like! Already some fav characters of yours in the suporting cast? Lemme know! For anyone who's interested in Espio's family history, btw, I mostly like taking my cues from JudasFm's stories, which have quite a bit of fun with Mobian world building and feature some fascinating animal cultures :) Also, if anyone wants to read more Sonic/Shadow interaction than we got in this chapter, _Advent of Equinox_ is going to update next! Yay! ;p That said, please tell me what you liked, and if you read, review? :D


	3. The Family Business

**YAY: **Yeeeeah, Shadow is kind of an abyssymal lier when he's not prepared. XD Some more Sonic-wondering coming up - now! :D

**EnerjakWho lazy: **(blushes) ahahah, wow, thanks! :D I'll try to deliver, hope you like! ;3**  
><strong>

**XxShadowxX: **Yeah, new fic always means the first few chaps should be up quickly :p For this fanfic I've done...research I'm not proud of, but glad people like the results! XD City Escape makes for a great ringtone (though I'm currently stuck with the Doctor Who theme) The school cracking down on Sonic...weeell, let's just say they've managed to put pressure on one of the few points where it hurts him. You can guess ;) Thanks for the wonderful review, as always! :D**  
><strong>

**DEV: **Seeehr wahrscheinlich. Ich hab hier ja ne ganze High School zu bevölkern. XD Und oh hey, ein Antoine-Fan? Ich muss sagen, ich finde seinen Akzent ganz fantastisch, aber nach seinem Redesign sieht er irgendwie so...nackt aus?^^° Und jupp, Jet ist natürlich mal wieder auf Ärger aus. Ob das jetzt so 'ne super Idee ist, den unbedingt bei *Shadow* zu suchen, weeeelll...XD 'ne mögliche Mischgesellschaft hier in der Story zu designen macht allerdings ziemlich Spaß. Shadow ist dafür natürlich 'n super Viewpoint Character (auch wenn er's irgendwo nicht zu schätzen scheint...) Die Schule hat Sonic hier schon an einem ziemlich empfindlichen Punkt erwischt, ja, aber das soll er später selber erzählen. ;) Vielen Dank für das wunderbare Review! :D **  
><strong>

**Selbrm**: thanks! Will do :)

**Katz4**: Hah, I have a feeling pretty much *anything* will be better than the expectations one generally has for a High School AU. XD Definitely more Human-Mobian Society background to come (Shadow has a lot to learn...) and some more familiar characters about to pop up soon! ;) Thanks for your review!

**Estrella85: **Hah, yeah, one thing I definitely strive for is making every character as likeable as possible, and in Amy's case that definitely means giving her some interests outside of Sonic. She really does have a heart of gold and loves helping lost people out, so it's no surprise she's trying to take Shadow under her wing, here. Glad you like and thanks for your review!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: The Family Business<br>**

"_You enrolled me in a school of crazy!"_

"Oh hi, Shadow!" Maria greeted the black hedgehog cheerfully as the Ultimate Lifeform stomped inside. It was safe to say that most anybody who knew Shadow would have run for the hills at the sight of his raised quills, blazing eyes and twitching eye muscle, but Maria also knew that hurting her would be the absolute last thing on Earth Shadow would ever do, and so she wasn't that concerned.

"All of the people in my class are _nuts_!"

"Aw, c'mon, it can't be that bad, right?" Maria hurried over to the kitchen table where Shadow had plunked himself down, the bag with his things tossed carelessly into a corner. Maria sat down and pushed a glass of orange juice toward her grumpy brother in what was clearly a peace offering.

"I think...Mobian culture is just different, right?" she tried with a slightly forced smile. "But it's a mixed school, isn't it? There should be humans there, too. How about them?"

Shadow shot her a look.

"Maria, one of the humans thinks she's a _genie_."

"Ah." The blonde girl winced. "Uh, well...at that age...teenagers like to try out...identities? I think?" she tried with a small grimace.

Shadow heaved a very deep sigh. The way he downed his orange juice indicated that he obviously wished it were alcoholic.

"Where's the professor?" Shadow asked then, looking around, apparently recognizing a lost battle for what it was.

"Still at work, moving into his new lab and offices at the university. Today was just enrollment for me, classes won't start until Wednesday, so he stayed and I took the bus home."

"Hnh." Shadow briefly crinkled his snout. "I don't know whether I like the idea of you being out in this bizarro world on your own."

"Oh come on, Shadow, this isn't Gotham City!" Maria laughed. "I'll be perfectly fine using public transport on my own."

"...still," Shadow managed, in the dissatisfied tone of all brothers who didn't like losing an argument to their sisters, but didn't quite know what to do about it. "How was your day?"

"Oh, it was really fun!" Maria said, perhaps a bit too quickly, but it was only when she caught her sibling's knowing eyes that she sagged a bit and relented. "...and okay, yeah, it was also completely _exhausting_. How can there be so many _people_ in the world?" she collapsed onto the table. "How can there even be so many people on _one_ campus?!"

"Slightly more than the population of 400 aboard the ARK, huh?" Shadow asked quietly, at the same time reaching out a gloved hand to cover the one of his sister where she had flung out her arm on the table.

"Yeah," Maria agreed with a sigh. Slowly, she turned her hand on the table around until she could grasp her much stronger brother's gloved fingers in her own as well. There was a moment of silence, both new arrivals on the Earth simply sharing a moment of peace with each other, knowing that no matter how different they looked, they knew exactly what the other felt and shared that.

Maria, still lying with her head upon her arm, let her lips hitch upwards in a slight smile as she glanced at the hedgehog.

"...wanna be antisocial and spend the rest of the day playing video games in my room?"

Shadow looked at her with wide eyes. "Oh hell _yes_."

xxx

"Shadow! Maria! Are you home?" the voice of the oldest Robotnik reverberated through the house, shortly after the sounds of a door being unlocked. "Come on down, I brought dinner!"

"In a moment, grandfather, Shadow is almost dead!"

"Am _not_!"

"You totally are, you _suck_ at playing Bowser-"

Gerald permitted himself a smile beneath his greying moustache as he listened to the two teenagers playing upstairs and began to set the table. It had been a good first day at work. Soon the door upstairs opened and he could hear both his creation and his grandchild descend the stairs.

"-not my fault Bowser is too damn _slow_-"

"Sorry, all I'm hearing is 'Wawawa, I'm the Ultimate Lifeform and I can't even hold a controller straight-"

"I promise you _revenge_," Shadow growled (in a, in Gerald's opinion, unnecessarily scary way), but then the black hedgehog immediately assumed a much more cordial expression as he beheld his creator and gave a nod.

"Good evening, professor."

"Good evening, you two." The old man smiled. "Did you have a good first day at school, Shadow? Made some friends?"

"Uhm. I think it's a bit early for that, isn't it?" the black hedgehog hedged, climbing a bit awkwardly into one of the larger human chairs, legs dangling off the seat as he examined the food on his plate.

"That school, professor..." he began, carefully. "It seems a bit...strange."

Gerald raised an eye brow. "It seems to me that could be said of our entire household, Shadow."

The black hedgehog snorted. "Even stranger. I'm only from outer space, I'm not claiming I'm from another _dimension_."

"Oh well, it takes all sorts to make a world," Gerald replied with a shrug, helping himself to some crab chips. Shadow pushed at his noodles with his chop sticks for one, two moments before he managed,

"Also, they thought it was really weird that I was living with humans." He looked up at the two of them with a slight frown. "Are mixed families that rare?"

"Ah," Gerald managed, wincing slightly. "I have to admit I have only looked into that a little. But I think, yes - the reason being mainly that different sapient sub-species can interbreed effortlessly, whereas the mating between, say, a hedgehog and a human-"

"Grandpa! We're _not_ having this discussion at the dinner table!" Maria looked up from her stir fry like she had bitten on a lemon. "I'm _eating_ here!"

"Your brother wanted to know," the older man shrugged with a scientist's detachment. "On that note, Shadow, if you go after any girls at your new school, if they're not human, you _will_ have to use-"

"_Professor_!"

"_Grandfather!_"

" - some reference material to get better acquainted with sapient dating traditions. What on _Earth_ is the matter with you?" Gerald asked with a frown, looking at the two teenagers at the table staring at him in utter panic/mortification.

"N...nothing," Shadow managed (after having succeeded in dislodging the bit of chicken almost stuck in his throat). "Just, er, not really looking at dating _anyone_ quite yet," he mumbled, while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his plate.

"Very well, very well." Gerald merely used his napkin to dab at the side of his moustache. "But yes. Very high biological incompatibility coupled with a reluctance of state agencies to allow even cross-subspecies adoptions is probably the reason for very, very few truly mixed families existing as of yet."

"What? Why would they forbid humans from adopting sapients? Or vice versa?" Maria asked, looking mildly put out. Her grandfather tried to reply in a more soothing voice.

"Mostly they're truly concerned with the well-being of the children, Maria. Imagine your adoptive parents being bats, for example, and you their wingless child, never able to accompany them. Earlier they also had to deal with humans labouring under the misconception that adopting a sapient child would be like having a fancy pet." Gerald shook his head. "Nowaways it's more about parents of different species being less likely to recognize something is wrong with their adoptive daughter's spines or feathers until it is too late. That's the reason why you'll hardly even find reptiles caring for mammals, or even vulpines for bovines, or similar. Luckily for _us_," Gerald gave a small smile at the last sentence, one hand of his briefly patting the black hedgehog on the shoulder, "Shadow getting sick has never and _will_ never be a problem."

"Not now that they've stopped injecting me with a new lethal disease every two weeks, yeah," Shadow replied with a wry smile. "But no wonder that they thought we were weird..."

"Your classmates won't be the only ones." Gerald shrugged. "I contacted your parents that we have left the military base, Maria, and we're going to visit them this weekend. Telling them that we'll be bringing Shadow along with us came as...a bit of a surprise to them."

"If that's a problem I don't _have_ to come-" the black hedgehog began immediately, frowning, but of course, Maria cut him off.

"Nonsense, Shadow, they'll just have to deal with it. They'll get used to it, anyway...I think." The girl shot both her brother and her grandfather at the table a slightly doubtful glance. "I mean...I haven't seen them for ten years, but they do know that you're my friend and important to me. They'll behave."

"Right." Shadow nodded (though his expression indicated he hadn't forgotten that those very same parents had thought cat food was a well-selected Christmas present for him only a couple of months ago). But then, in truth, the visit to Maria's parents was only a minor concern he would be able to deal with later. The more pressing matter was...

"But I also wanted to ask about something else. At school, they kept reacting somewhat...strangely to me when I introduced myself." He looked up. "As Shadow Robotnik."

He knew something was up the moment Gerald's fingers on his chopsticks turned white from the pressure of his grip.

"Two of them asked me about my surname, as if it was something really weird." Shadow tried to let his voice stay even. "And one of them asked me whether I was related to a certain Doctor Ivo Robotnik." He looked at his creator. "Are we?"

For a few moments, Gerald didn't say anything. When he spoke, his voice was brittle.

"...not from his point of view."

"What?" Shadow and Maria had uttered the question in unison, now exchanging glances.

Gerald was staring down at his plate, not meeting either of their eyes.

"He is my grandson. And your biological cousin, Maria. But he disowned our entire family decades ago."

Shadow frowned at this. "Okay, but...who _is_ he?"

"He is a madman," Gerald said sadly.

When it became apparent, that his two charges were still staring at him intently and confused, the old man drew another breath "Dr. Ivo Robotnik," He sighed. "As brilliant as the rest of our family, but he never used his talents for the benefit of mankind." His tone became bitter. "I don't want to go into how it happened. It's not a pretty story from any perspective."

Shadow leaned forward, eyes intent. This explained the shocked glances of everyone at least. Maybe this cousin was a criminal. "Okay. Black sheep of the family. But why does everyone keep asking me about it?"

Gerald looked contrite. "He's responsible for a series of mass killings on Green Island and Westside Island in the southern hemisphere over five years ago. The victims were nearly 100 percent sapients." He winced. "In fact, that's the reason even more of them emigrated to the northern half of the planet." He swallowed. "I think he honestly wanted to conquer the entire Earth."

Shadow nodded. Five years ago. That was when he had just been awoken. In fact, he vaguely remembered Maria telling him something about this family backstory now, but he had only been two at the time and had difficulty remembering the details. What was happening on the world had just never seemed that important when you floated so high up in space...

Shadow drew a breath "Then what happened?"

"There was a sapient guerrilla fighter who stopped him pretty much single-handedly every time. Then Ivo simply...disappeared. For a while"

Shadow raised an appreciative eye ridge. That sure sounded impressive. He might have to look up the name of that individual sometime.

"And now he's gone?" Maria asked, throat dry. Like Shadow, she had known about having a cousin on Earth who was behaving less than stellar, but also like Shadow, the sheer magnitude of his wrongdoings was only hitting home now.

Gerald looked unhappy. "Sadly, I don't think so. Last year, Station Square was apparently severely damaged by a water creature called Perfect Chaos. The reports are disagreeing with each other how much my grandson was involved with that, but it seems he had least some sort of hand in it." Gerald ran a hand across his face. "It is clear he tried at least to blow up the city with a nuclear missile. He is still killing, stealing, and claiming remote areas as his sovereign territories. Even GUN seems only to be a minor inconvenience to him. I have a suspicion he might even have been the one to attack the base last week."

Maria gaped. "A nuke? Aimed at the city _we moved to_? They let someone like that run around _loose_?"

"Well, like I said, that sapient hero was the only one who so far seemed able to overcome him," Gerald said, brows creased. "Sometimes, the genius running in our family can be a curse."

"But...why don't you stop him, then, professor?" Shadow asked. "I saw you put together an economy version of the Eclipse Cannon in one afternoon. If this lunatic is your grandson, isn't that your responsibility?"

Gerald's lips became a thin line. "I have already been over this with GUN command many times, Shadow. I can't."

"Why?"

The old man was fisting his hands in the fabric of his trousers. "Because...so far, Ivo is holding _back_." He looked up. "You're right when you tell me I can put together a weapon of mass destruction in a few hours." He swallowed. "Now can you imagine what Ivo can do? What would happen if I went to war with a grandson of mine? It could make half of the planet uninhabitable!" Gerald shook his head. "The genius of that guerilla fighter was that he was able to strike with precision and without much collateral damage."

"But...you can't just do _nothing_!" Shadow accused him, incredulously. Beside the two, Maria was glancing unhappily back and forth, clearly not sure which side she should take. Gerald's face hardened.

"I am a pacifist, Shadow, and you know that. I will not condone answering violence with violence. Have I taught you nothing?"

"But...!"

Shadow could feel his fists clenching uselessly. He _knew_ both his creator and Maria abhorred anything that endangered human or sapient lives – but Shadow, who had been taken by GUN when he was young and been brutally trained to become a killing machine until he had learned to embrace the sheer power he wielded, was far more fond of brute force as a way of solving problems.

_It's useless. They're not going to approve of anything you will say. _

Shadow gritted his teeth. "I don't think it's right. I think we need to try and stop him." He glanced at Maria's pained face and knew this wasn't fair. They had come here to earth to have a normal life, and already, everything was going wrong.

Gerald's brow furrowed, as if he was thinking about it.

Then:

"I could try to write him a letter, I suppose."

Shadow felt like sweat-dropping. "You said he was a mass murderer, professor. I'm not sure whether he is exactly looking for a pen-pal."

Gerald shrugged. "Maybe. But who knows what he might really be looking for."

Shadow took a breath, not amused by this. "If you won't, professor, I _will_ do something about him."

And now, suddenly, Gerald's tone was as cold and as sharp as a knife. "You will do _nothing_ of the sort, Shadow."

"What-?!" Shadow sputtered, rarely having been on the receiving end of a strict order from his creator. "But I could take him, I'm sure!" he protested. "I'm the Ultimate Lifeform. There's no one on _Earth_ who is a match for me-"

"I never meant for you to become a weapon, Shadow, and you _know_ that."

"But-!"

"Plus, we are trying to _fit in_," Gerald reminded him. The old man suddenly looked rather tired, and an almost pleading note had entered into his voice. "That's what you want, too, isn't it?"

Shadow looked down and didn't answer. There was Chaos energy uselessly crackling in the balled fist in his lap.

"...I think I'm not hungry any more."

"Shadow..." Gerald started, somewhere in between a warning tone and resigned frustration, but the black hedgehog had already pushed his chair back and stood up.

"Good night, professor," was the last thing he said before walking away from the table and into his room.

xxx

It was only a few hours later that the door opened, long after every other single light in the house had been extinguished.

"...Shadow?"

"Hmpf."

Taking the wordless grunt for the invitation it was, Maria slipped inside her brother's room quietly, moving like a shadow herself. Shadow was sprawled on his bed on his stomach, staring sideways at the wall. He didn't move much when the girl let herself sink onto the mattress beside him, but his quills flattened slightly in a show of slowly abating aggression.

They flattened slightly further when the next thing that happened was a slender human hand running through the fur on top of his head and scratching him behind a twitching black ear, letting fiercely glaring red eyes finally close and a sort of instinctive pleased noise emanate from his chest, that he had never quite been able to suppress at this treatment.

And Shadow couldn't see it now, but he could basically _hear_ Maria's lips twitch up in a smile. She also knew she was the only one ever allowed to pet him like a feral dog, something Shadow would never have permitted any other human who had treated him as one for so long.

The girl drew a breath in the darkness, seemingly thinking of what she should say next.

"...I got weird looks because of my name, too, today," she said quietly.

Shadow didn't reply. The scratching of his friend's hand continued, though, the only noise in the dark until Maria spoke again.

"I had known a little about what our cousin did...mostly I had gathered it had to do with environmental damage, though." She paused, like she often did when she bit her lip. "I had never imagined it would be this bad. I'm kind of afraid to start researching where he is now or how active."

Again, Shadow didn't quite know what to say to that. He shifted slightly under Maria's hand, though, giving her more access to the back of his neck. It at least gained a small snort from the girl, who knew when the Ultimate Lifeform wanted to be indulged. She sighed.

"After the third shocked glance whenever I introduced myself, I kind of got it that there was something not quite right with our name," she said, tone becoming somewhat dry. "Now that I know why I'm thinking of introducing myself with a different one, when I don't absolutely have to use my real one." She glanced down at Shadow. "What do you think of 'Maria Kintobor'?"

At this, Shadow finally rolled onto his back and fixed his friend with a raised eye ridge.

"Reversing the surname? That has to be some kind of cartoony record."

"I _know_!" Maria groaned, dropping her head into her hands.

Shadow regarded her for a few moments, silently. When he spoke, his voice had lost the jocular tone.

"...it's not fair we should have to suffer for him. It's not fair that he basically ruined our family's name."

"I talked some more with grandfather after you were gone. I think grandpa may have done that by himself when he abandoned our cousin's mom and dad," Maria said quietly. "Maybe if he had taken some more interest in our cousin as a child, he might never have..."

She trailed off and Shadow could feel the Chaos roiling in his chest again, frustrated anger always letting it churn inside himself like a trapped and dangerous creature. The black hedgehog glared at the ceiling. So far, he had thought he had an identity. As an experiment and a soldier, yes, as a saviour and a survivor, sure, but foremost as a brother and maybe, just maybe as a..._son_.

Truthfully, he had never called his creator his father to his face, but sometimes...when he had lain alone in the dark after another harrowing experiment on him and Gerald had brushed over his quills when he had already thought Shadow asleep...

His eyes trailed over to his writing desk, on top of which his school ID card lay. On it, after his given name, _Shadow_, was nothing but a blank. As an officially adopted sapient, he knew he had the choice of assuming the name of his human family, when he came of age, or to choose a traditionally sapient name – Shadow the Hedgehog.

"I just thought..." Shadow caught his sister's eye as he spoke, and then hurriedly looked away, feeling stupid for even voicing the childish thought. "Y'know...what with me being an experiment 'n all..."

Immediately, predictably, he could feel Maria's grip in his fur tighten. "Shadow, you know that none of that _matters_, right?" she asked, voice of course full of concern. "None of that makes you anything less worth as a person. Anyone who thinks otherwise can go stick their head in a particle accelerator."

"Yeah, I know," Shadow replied with a huff, wishing his tone would sound convinced even to his own ears. "It's just...even without being related to anyone by blood, at least having a family name would've been nice," he grumbled into the sheets.

_Like you're belonging somewhere._

Almost involuntarily, he could feel his hand shifting on the sheets, grasping for Maria's.

"And now, if we have to abandon our name just to fit in..." He trailed off and closed his eyes, shifting his whole body closer to his friend with a defeated groan.

"Maria...I sometimes don't even know who I am any more."

"We're teenagers. We're figuring that one out." Shadow could feel a soft brush against his fur as a familiar kiss landed on his forehead. "And as for you," his sister replied quietly with a smile, "You're my most favourite hedgehog in the whole world."

Shadow sighed.

_Well,_ he thought as he squeezed her hand right back.

At least that was something.

_To be continued..._

* * *

><p>Aaaand we're back on track! Chapter title curtesy of the new <em>Supernatural<em> season, which is off to a fantastic start :D Hope you all enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter, where Shadow finally comes face to face with this_ really weird_ blue guy, trouble is brewing during lunch, and a few more familiar faces say hello ;) Hope you liked and if you read, please review! :D


	4. Be Careful What You Wish For

**Anynoymous Review Replies! **

**Kalex Chwell: **Hah, sadly, more unfortunate events for Shadow ahead - but no crappy video game this time, so that's a bonus? (Mind you, I actually did enjoy the neutral missions in ShtH, just the combing and combing of endless levels for that last GUN soldier was a pain...-.-) Let's see whether any face punching in this chapter's gonna be necessary, then? Thanks for the review! :D**  
><strong>

**XxShadowxX: **Ahahah, forced swimming lessons? I have a feeling Sonic would run away from those even quicker than from the classroom ;) Naw, it's something even simpler, but much more forceful. :3 And yuuup, trouble brewing there...unfortunately, not *only* there. Thank you for commenting, glad you like the fluff! :) (There will be more, I promise...)**  
><strong>

**EnerjakWho conga: **(dancing now, are we?): How I choose which Sonic characters I use...hm, mostly it's the ones from the Games since that is the continuity I followed first and write most in, but I do love the Archie cast for its diversity. You'll likely see a few familiar faces pop up in this chapter as well ;) Any characters from AoStH - hah, what? Scratch and Grounder? I dunno, I'd enjoy seeing Archie or Games Robotnik deal with one of their latest screw-ups! XD**  
><strong>

**Katz4: **Me, not keeping Sonic IC? The very thought! :p I like him way too much, no worries ;) Sonic as a guerilla fighter...hm, I think it might not be the perfect description, but perhaps the most accurate. Definitely during his time in the Southern Hemisphere, I'd think. I might have picked up that term from another fanfic, but I couldn't be too sure.^^° Thanks for the comment!**  
><strong>

**Selbrm: **Thanks! Here you go!**  
><strong>

**DEV: **Ejupp, Super Smash Bros. (Auch wenn's wahrscheinlich Melee war, ansonsten würd Shadow vll schneller schnackeln, was genau es mit seinem Klassenkameraden auf sich hat...XD) Gerald VS Ivo..uh-huh, dazu kommt auf jeden Fall noch einiges hier. Sagen wir mal, Shadow wurde nicht unbedingt von der einfachsten Familie adoptiert.^^° Die Schule hat zum Glück NICHT die Chili Dogs rausgenommen XD (siehe weiter unten :P) aber hat sich leider was anderes einfallen lassen. Ich muss zugeben, am meisten mag ich Antoine ja, wenn er anderen Charakteren, ohne dass er's merkt, den letzten Nerv raubt (die eine Sonic Universe Geschichte mit Tails, Bunny und Twan auf der Battle Cuckoo Insel war super...) ich hoffe mal das führen sie im Reboot weiter :) Und jetzt...ein Update plus ein erstes Meeting! :D Vielen Dank für den Kommentar!^^

**Guest:** Oooh, boy, will it EVER not go as planned.^^° Visit to the family coming up soon, btw :) Glad to hear what you liked, hope you'll enjoy the new chapter!**  
><strong>

**Seal Kitty: **Yeeeah, saw that too, fixed now - argh. Thanks for pointing it out.^^° I absolutely adore badass!Robotnik, so yeah, he's never gonna be a threat to be underestimated! More on that soonish :)**  
><strong>

**briana: **Ahahah, yeah, I make it kind of my sport to use horrible fanfic premises and make them work. XD Next fic in that line if probably gonna be a Sonic/Pokemon crossover :p As for He Is My Master it's basically the result of me seeing badly-written OOC Sonic in sonadow stories over and over, feeling like eating my keyboard, and then deciding to write my own instead :p Keeping Shadow in Character is not always easy either, but using 'Life...' as a background helps immensely - mostly it comes down to practice, I think. The more you write and the more differing experiences you put him through, the easier it gets. There's an explanation coming regarding Sonic's staying in school, too, no worries. Hope you enjoy the new chapter! (we need some entertainment now that SPN is on winter break, right...?:p)**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: Be Careful What You Wish For<br>**

The next day, the blue hedgehog was back at school, Shadow noted. His quills looked messed up, there was a cut on his cheek, a shoddily-tied bandage around his upper arm, and he seemed to limp slightly, though he hid it well.

_Gang violence? _Shadow wondered. He certainly wouldn't be surprised at _this_ school. Currently, the blue sapient was rifling around in what had to be his locker, which of course was also a total mess.

The next moment, however, Shadow's inspection of disapproval was interrupted with a _bump_!, as he had just collided with one of the human teenagers in his class. It was potentially his own fault, really – staring at someone while walking down the corridor probably hadn't been the wisest decision – but the boy who he had walked into in the black hedgehog's opinion definitely overreacted.

"Hey! Watch it!" Shadow's eyes widened as he received a rude shove that he hadn't been prepared for and it took him a second to regain his footing without activating his skates, which would have attracted attention. But he immediately snarled at the human when he had caught himself, glaring up at a boy with thinning brown hair and an overly large nose who was now staring dismissively at Shadow.

"Honestly, are you so short you can't see where you're going? Friggin _animals._"

"Sorry, what was that? Couldn't quite hear you there, Julian, care to repeat yourself?"

The voice was pleasant, and light, and so deceptively friendly Shadow would have expected the human to not even notice the threat laced within the words. But instead the teenager had suddenly assumed an interesting shade of pale as the blue hedgehog, who up until now had been buried in his locker, was suddenly standing beside him, arms crossed and foot tapping.

"Uh, nothing, I mean-!"

"Uh-huh." The sapient now looked less than impressed. "Now, if you're through with being an ass to the newbie, why don't you take your carrot nose and your sorry excuse for headfur and scram." The blue hedgehog jerked a thumb over his shoulder, still giving the scrawny teenager a cool look and Julian indeed made off as fast he could, though not without shooting a last, poisonous glare over his shoulder, hissing:

"Just you wait. He won't be around to protect you next time, crawler."

Shadow didn't react other than returning the glare with an irritated expression of his own – no matter the two feet the lanky teen had on him, regarding him as anything more than a minor annoyance would have been ridiculous – except then, the entire morning didn't show any signs of getting better any time soon because _now, _instead of Julian it was the blue show-off in his face.

"Hey, you okay? Did that guy hurt you?"

"I'm _fine_," Shadow said crisply, not appreciating looking like a helpless wimp on his second day already. What business to interfere did the guy have anyway, other than to make him look incompetent? Shadow fixed the other hedgehog with a cool expression. "And I don't need any help to deal with idiots."

"Woah, okay, gotcha," the other's eye ridges rose slightly, returning the cold stare with a faintly taken aback expression. "Just thought I should check in, in case something needed to be taken care of, s'all."

Shadow only raised one eye ridge, not-so-subtly looking up and down the other's ragged appearance. "You look like you need help taking care of yourself."

And to Shadow's utter surprise, the only response of the other was to laugh.

"Ya, no worries, dude, I can do that alright," the blue hedgehog gave him a bright grin as soon as he had recovered. "Shades, wasn't it?"

"_Shadow_," Shadow corrected, his tone by now chilly enough that the syllables had little icicles hanging from them.

"Oh. Uh. Right." The blue hedgehog sobered up a little at the drop in temperature, apparently finally catching on to Shadow's less than welcoming demeanour and that his 'help' had been not as appreciated as he had thought - but then in the end merely shrugged again and moved on with a little wave. "Well then, take care. See ya later!"

And then he was already gone faster than should have been possible. Shadow's head turned just in time to watch him ambling away at the end of the corridor, for a moment at a complete and utter loss on what this was supposed to have been – but then another voice already spoke up at his side, distracting him.

"Oh, don't pay attention to _him_. He's too good for us commoners."

The Ultimate Lifeform turned around. The one who had spoken to him was the red-furred vixen he recognized from his home room class. He supposed she looked quite pretty and well put-together; her dark red hair styled in a flowing shoulder-length cut, her slim figure accentuated by a tight-fitting, orange-white sleeveless bodysuit with short legs. (Shadow also noticed that she wore black make-up that accentuated her already feminine vulpine eyes in a rather skilled way – it had come to his attention because he knew this was something that Maria still struggled with. Shadow had caught her once trying to apply it, and then had laughed so long and so hard at her until he'd finally had to retreat from the bathroom before a pot with creme had actually connected with his head.)

"Uh..." Shadow began, still a bit uneasy to suddenly be approached by complete strangers and he also wasn't really sure how to reply to the fox' statement. She seemed to sense his unease and gave him an easy smile.

"Hey, easy. I'm Fiona - but you can call me Fi." She gave him a small wink that Shadow didn't know how to react to either, and then gestured at the (also very pretty, if definitely more in a wild way) purple female weasel next to her. "And this is my friend Nic. You're...Shattner, wasn't it?"

"_Shadow_," Shadow corrected slightly irritably, wondering why everyone in this school seemed to have a hearing problem.

"Right, yeah," Fiona nodded. "Anyway, we just wanted to introduce ourselves and say hi. You're probably still a bit in shock, huh? Dunno whether you noticed yet, but most people at this school are crazy."

"Yes," Shadow said dryly. "I noticed."

Fiona nodded again. "Exactly. But yeah...anyway, we thought you looked cool enough, so in case you ever want to hang out with the non-crazies..." She let the sentence trail off for a moment, "...you're welcome to hang out with us. It'd be better for you in the long run, too. Jet knows to leave my friends alone, for instance." She smirked.

"Yeah, y'all don't hafta rely on Sonic the Gloryhog for assistance," the purple weasel added, jerking a thumb into the direction the blue hedgehog had left. "Mind you, not that he can give that much any more, anyway, but..."

"So, yeah," Fiona cut Nic off easily, "Would love to see more from you..." she said, at the same time taking a step closer and briefly leaning in to let her lips brush against Shadow's ear. "_Ciao_..."

The next second, they had already turned away and stalked off as well, the crowd parting in front of them like an electron cloud with a negative ion coming through. Shadow looked after them, not sure why he was also feeling like he was suddenly the involuntary star in a movie called _Mean Hedgehogs_.

xxx

"Here you go, Shadow. The results from your placement test are in. You have two Advanced Placement classes and two Catch Up courses. First one is this afternoon, please report to the classroom on the sheet."

"Right," Shadow said, taking the sheet of paper Ms Ebony was handing him. Home Room class was in progress, which meant that people everywhere were talking loudly, frantically trying to finish homework assignments for later periods today, or, in one case, sleeping with their head on the desk and drooling on the wood.

Shadow was awarding no points for guessing which blue pain-in-the-quills _that_ was.

Why was this guy even allowed to go to school?

He turned his attention to his sheet again. The Advanced Placement classes were in Theoretical Physics, Chemistry and Biology – no surprise there, those had been Gerald's favourite subjects which he had taught the most – but the Catch Up courses were in Home Economics and Social Studies, which Shadow freely admitted he knew almost nothing about.

He still tried not to show how it stung that he had been placed in them, though. _Maria probably wouldn't have failed any tests,_ a niggling voice in his brain insisted.

_Well, Maria didn't have to go to school that collectively rides the short bus. _

Shadow sighed. Was he exaggerating? Or was this girl Fiona right? If even she insisted that most of this school's student body was off their rocker...there had to be _some_ normal people here, right?

While he was still wondering, Amy at last leaned over and elbowed him lightly in the side.

"Hey," she said. "Cheer up, you look like someone bent your quills the wrong way this morning."

"I have to take _Catch Up courses_." It had slipped out in a resentful grumble without him meaning it to, but Amy only laughed.

"Oh, come on, they're not that bad. I had to take them once, too."

"Really?" Shadow asked. Amy had seemed a bit ditzy, yeah, but she had also been quite industrious yesterday after the teacher's remark and worked quietly and earnestly at her tasks. He wouldn't have picked her for the type to struggle in school. In fact, she had more or less made his 'sane people' list by the end of the last day.

"Yeah!" Amy declared. "I missed like an entire month of school when I went to the Miracle Planet and got abducted by that robot! It was all worth it, though, Sonic saved me in the end!"

_Right. So much for the non-crazy-list, then. _

Shadow sighed very deeply. Ms Ebony left and the first period (Literature, which was taught by a Mr. Stewart, who turned out to be a human) was about to begin, and Shadow correctly guessed that if that damned blue hedgehog _kept_ snoring throughout the entire lesson, he would be sorely tempted to hit him with his very own copy of _Aardvark Shrugged_.

Noticing something else, then, he proceeded to lean slightly closer to his pink seat neighbour, taking care to keep his voice low.

"Uh...Amy?"

"Yeah?" she whispered back.

"Why does that boy in the second row keep staring at me like that?"

"Oh. Ah." Amy gave a slighty awkward smile. "That's, uh, that's Chris. He, um...has this..._thing_...for hedgehogs."

"This _what_?" Shadow stared at her, slightly disturbed.

"Oh, don't worry, he's really harmless!" Amy at once tried to calm him. "And mostly he's only stalking Sonic."

Shadow gave her a flat look. "This information somehow doesn't make me feel better."

Amy retorted with a light nudge and a grin. "Aw, c'mon. I think it's mostly just because you kinda look like Sonic, anyway."

Shadow was just about to reply that, if he spotted any resemblance on himself toward the blue freak from this morning, he'd probably shove his own face into a blender, but (perhaps fortunately) at this point there was a rather stern clearing of the throat by Mr. Stewart from the blackboard, and the conversation came to a premature end.

xxx

_Lunch break. Finally. _

Shadow turned away from the food counter, somewhat dubiously regarding today's "Charlie, insecti-carnivore, lactose-intolerant!" option lunch on his tray, which seemed to be a sort of hotdog, redundantly garnished with minced meat and milk-free cheese on top of it. Letting his eyes roam over the cafeteria for a moment, briefly wondering where he should sit today, he found his gaze locking on onto Amy's bright pink form almost out of habit. Today she sat at a table much with the same group of Mobians as she had yesterday, the only difference being that this time, they had been joined by three more – on one of the chairs, crouching on the seat like a feral monkey, sat the strange orange jungle badger, Stones, or Twigs, or something to that effect, Shadow recalled, and she was currently staring at the hotdog on her plate suspiciously, as if waiting for it to strike. Next to her sat another kid, presumably some sort of fox, also very young. The _third_ new arrival, however, was none other than...Shadow growled.

_That damn blue hedgehog again, of all places. _After having slept through nearly both of the lessons this morning, and in the process wearing Shadow's patience thin by also being the _noisiest _sleeper Shadow had ever seen, he was now shoveling the hotdog lunch into his maw like a spiky vacuum cleaner. Shadow found his upper lip curling in distaste. Being treated like a lab animal by most GUN personel aboard the ARK, it had always felt somewhat important to him to eat, carry and groom himself like a civilized person, making a point of his sapience when no one else would. The blue hedgehog, it was obvious, cared for none of that – and judging by how everyone else at the table seemed absolutely enraptured by whatever tale he was telling in between messy bites of his fast food, neither did they.

Shadow for some reason almost felt disappointed.

_No. What? _

Realizing the feeling for what it was, the Ultimate Lifeform quickly tried to crush the notion as ruthlessly as he could, mentally berating himself for this childish emotion of juvenile attachment. He turned his back to the section of the hall Amy and the others were sitting in so in case they saw him, none of them could wave him over.

Amy had been pleasant enough (in a mildly exasperating way), and while Shadow hadn't much cared for either the loudmouth crocodile or the raccoon, he had taken a bit of a liking toward the mature attitude and the reserved nature of the armadillo and the purple chameleon, respectively – but now with not one, but _three_ new people at the table, none of whom Shadow particularly cared to meet, he found himself less than enthused at the idea of sitting again with them. The black hedgehog had almost reached the decision of dumping his lunch in the bin, foregoing nutrition and instead running on Chaos energy for the rest of the day, when a voice at his side interrupted his thoughts.

"Hey there, Shadow. Looking a bit lonely, aren't you? Care to join us for lunch?"

The Ultimate Lifeform turned around. Fiona from home room was standing next to him, the scarlet-furred vixen giving him a lazy smile and beckoning at a table a few metres over. Nic and a few other sapients Shadow hadn't seen before were sitting at it and regarding him all with varying degrees of curiosity.

"Everyone would love to meet ya," Fiona said – right before leaning in a bit closer, lowering her voice and adding with a mocking smirk, "Well...unless you wanted to buy a ticket for the resident freak show again, that is..."

Shadow followed her glance toward the table of Amy and Co. Given that the badger girl now seemed to be tying her fork to a broom handle to create a sort of IKEA spear, the blue hedgehog had apparently challenged Vector as to who could fit more of the blasted sausages in their mouth and the little fox was cheering them on while even Amy and Mighty seemed to be torn in between exasperation and amusement...Shadow turned quickly around and nodded.

"Yes. I'd be delighted to join."

Fiona gave a laugh at his dry tone, and nodded. "Alright. Lemme introduce you to the _normal_ people at this school..."

She turned to walk back to the table she had come from and Shadow followed. He recognized the weasel girl from this morning, but didn't think he had seen the other faces before. Just like Amy's table this one was populated entirely by sapients – next to Nic sat a chipmunk girl, a male, well-groomed skunk, a grey-haired pale yellow fox with a somewhat cold expression on his face, and finally, looming over everyone else, a hulking teenage gorilla who out of some misguided fashion sense was wearing camouflage combat pants and boots. Most of them regarded him just with calm or appraising interest instead of the hyper, overboarding enthusiasm of Amy's group, though, so Shadow thought that this at least might be a more relaxing lunch period.

"Hey, Fi. Managed to bag yourself a hedgehog yet, have you?" Nic greeted them when Shadow and Fiona approached and sat down. Fiona rolled her eyes.

"Shut up, Nic. I thought Shadow might fit in with us and that's _it_, okay?"

"Suuure," the weasel smirked. "Has jack to do with you trying to get with Sonic the Hedgehog last year and failing miserably, I'm convinced."

"I said shut _up_!" Fiona squeaked, and Shadow for a moment felt like letting his head sink onto the table in despair. By now he was halfway convinced that the moment he had set foot into Station Square he had somehow stepped into a universe where life itself seemed to revolve around that chaos-damned blue hedgehog by default.

"Hello," he instead tried to address the other occupants of the table, hoping that perhaps the male population of the planet might be marginally less obsessed. "I don't think Fiona gave me your names. You're...?"

"Myles the Fox. Pleasure." The grey-haired, somewhat short vulpine extended a hand, the cold not leaving his eyes but giving a polite nod nonetheless. "These here are Jeffrey and Simon – when he's not calling himself 'Sgt. Simian', that is." He gestured at the skunk who gave a wave and at the gorilla who turned away with a light blush and a scowl, eliciting a snort from the fox. "And what brings you to our humble table, mystery new guy?"

"I promise you, I'm not that mysterious," Shadow replied smoothly, hoping further attention to his past could possibly be deflected before it came up. Instead, he made a show of leaning back and giving a casual nudge with his head in the general direction of Amy's table. "Mostly I'm here to avoid another edition of the _Sonic the Hedgehog_ show."

This earned a few twitching lips and knowing laughs around the table. Shadow relaxed marginally as it became at last apparent that he was not actually the only person in the universe who found the blue sapient's presence grating.

"A wise choice," the last member of the table, the chipmunk girl commented dryly. "Hi. I'm Alicia." She nodded at Shadow. "I never quite got why Fiona was hitting on the guy to begin with. Too much of a goody-two-shoes and poking his nose in everyone's business on top of that."

"He looked hot and fun, okay? It was a mistake. Stop grilling me about it," Fiona snapped. "I couldn't know he was basically the Mobian version of Dudley effing Do-Right..."

"True." Nic smirked. "If you ask me, he's probably watched one episode of _Lassie_ too much."

That got another laugh from the table. Shadow could feel his lips twitch. The mental image of the blue hedgehog running around after everyone like the feral dog on the old TV show was amusing.

"Fucking speciesist that programme, anyway." Myles shrugged and bit into his own lunch.

"Yeah, best to avoid the whole of that table," Alicia added. "None of the others are any saner. Like, Amy?" she asked, casting a glance at Shadow. "Fi asked Sonic out _once_. But that pink hedgehog by now has probably built a shrine to him."

"Eyup," Nic agreed, poking at her food and giving Shadow a lazy smile. "Be careful she doesn't paint you blue one day and lock you up in her closest."

"Probably wouldn't even be her first victim," Jeffrey added, his face grave. "I think every weekend she holds a ceremonial quill burning. To summon Sonic."

"That's alright. My fur was designed fire retardant," Shadow replied automatically, and then could have slapped himself because _why did you say that_ _normal people don't say things like that_, but to his relief, the others at the table merely blinked at him, and then gave a round of appreciative laughter, apparently thinking Shadow had made a casual joke.

The Ultimate Lifeform was oddly surprised how nice it felt.

"But yeah, enough of that show-hog already. What ya do for fun, Shadow?" Nic asked.

"I don't know. I haven't been in Station Square long."

"Huh, really?" Fiona asked. "Then how about we take you to see the city centre sometime this week? Could be fun."

_You just got invited to something. Maybe you're not screwing up this fitting-in business as bad as you thought after all. Maybe all you needed was the right group. _

"...yes," Shadow conceded. "I'd like that."

"Eugh, don't take him on a girly _shopping trip_!" Myles exclaimed, giving a face palm. "Look. Shadow, man, if you really want to see the town, how about you come by for a round of cruising this weekend? My father's got some choppers we can use. Or we could go to my family's gun range - it's Simon's second home anyway and it's definitely better than being dragged around by Fi," he smirked. "Don't look put out, girls, you're welcome to join us and learn something if you want."

"Learn something?" Nic countered. "Please. I could shoot off those ridiculous bangs of yours from a 100 metre distance and you know it."

"Your family...owns motorcycles and a _gun range_?" Shadow asked, trying to keep his tone _very_ casual, (and not at all like Myles had basically described a trip to a theme park for him) True, he had never _sat_ on a motorbike so far, but he had always wanted to. Also, he hadn't been allowed to fire a gun again ever since they had left the ARK, and while he loved Maria dearly, her basic aversion to weapons had often been a cause for rows between the two siblings. The thought of getting to fire something far away from her when she would likely never find out was...very appealing.

"Yeah," Myles grinned smugly. "And the best thing is that it has real life-like overlander targets!"

"Overlander...targets?" Shadow frowned

"Yeah. I mean, not _real_ overlanders, obviously, but puppets shaped like them." Jeffrey shrugged. "You can pretend to shoot skinbags all day long."

"Skinbags," Shadow repeated the word, now somewhat more tonelessly.

"Yeah." Myles waved a hand. "Y'know, like mangies? Trolls? Stick-swingers? _Overlanders_, dude."

"Humans, you mean." Shadow said, and his expression by now had become as cold as his tone.

"Yeah, _humans_," Myles scoffed. "Don't look so surprised. Not like everyone wouldn't already have seen that they're a jumped-up, dead end of the evolution ladder." He leaned forward. "You know why so many Mobians have special abilities and none of the humans do? It's 'cause they're a lost cause. They're meant to go extinct. _We're_ the next step of the future."

Alicia snorted. "Also, most of them are plain crazy. Like, that Robotnik freak? You never see any _Mobian_ lunatic trying to take over the planet. And right now he's at it _again._"

Jeffrey shrugged. "Don't think you can even blame individuals of them for their actions any more. Their entire gene pool is corrupted." He absent-mindedly fixed his white head-fur a little. "They're too large, there's too many of them since they ironically breed like rabbits and they take up too many resources. They basically _ruin_ any environment they touch. If we could simply flush them out from the system, it would probably make the entire planet's collective genome healthier. Less birth defects and all that."

Shadow noticed how his fist had clenched on his thigh even without his conscious thought.

"My sister was born with a genetic disease," he said, quietly, but with a face like stone. "It nearly killed her before her grandfather managed to cure her."

"Oh hey, that sucks, man." Myles replied, his voice only containing some casual sympathy at best. "But hey, at least be glad she wasn't born a human, right? 'cause I dunno what's up with their genes, because," and then he abruptly raised his voice, suddenly focusing on something behind Shadow, "like half of them are born _freaks_!"

Shadow only then glanced over his shoulder to see that just in this moment, the human girl in the wheelchair (_Helen?_) from his class had been rolling past.

"Yeah, it's like evolution couldn't make it plainer who was meant to be on top here," Fiona also piped up now, "– cause otherwise they wouldn't get born as _meals on wheels_!" She yelled, and, just like the first time, the lips of the blonde girl thinned as she ducked her head, showing that she had definitely heard the remark even if she tried not to show it. The two boys that had been walking with her, Chris and Danny, immediately whirled around at the sapient table with absolutely thunderous faces, but at the same time Simon the Gorilla stood up. He was easily towering over both the white and the black teenager by more than a foot, and then Helen had already softly grabbed for the hands of her friends, shaking her head and obviously calling them back.

As they reluctantly turned around again, the entire table nearly howled with laughter.

"Hah, oh man," Nic laughed, "that _never_ fails to rile them up-!"

There was a _bang!_ as Shadow abruptly put his glass down and stood up.

"Hey, what's-?" Fiona asked, her face drawing into a frown of confusion, but Shadow cut her off.

"I've suddenly lost my appetite."

"Hey! Hey, what's the matter with you?!" both Nic and the vixen called after him, but Shadow already wasn't looking back any more as he strode out.

On his way from the canteen, he also passed the table where Helen and her friends had sat down with another red-haired human girl, all four of them now shooting him dirty looks, but Shadow only gave them a flat stare back, not bothering to correct them in their mistaken assumption that he approved of what had just gone down at that table. It wasn't his job to apologize for the others and he felt like he had had enough of trying to fit in for one day.

Besides, he was too busy thinking. They said Ivo Robotnik was _still_ trying to take over the world?!

_To be continued..._

* * *

><p>Heh, wish I had a more light-hearted chapter for the holidays in the pipeline, guys (of course, everyone who hasn't read it yet is still welcome to have a look at 'All They Want For Christmas' for a more fun look at Sonic and Shadow during the festivities) but, well...Shadow's learning the hard way what makes for good people to hang around with and I hope all of you have their share of that for the next few days :) Merry Christmas, everyone!<p> 


	5. Shopping For Trouble

**Anonymous Review Replies!**

**EnerjakWho cheer**: Ahahah, woah, been hitting the Christmas candy, I take it? XD Glad you liked the chappie as a present :D Also O.o, I have to admit that among the few High School AUs I have read there wasn't one that featured sonadow. (Well, one. But that had Sonic as some sort of undercover secret agent at an all girls school and Shadow was the principal and that featured *definitely* more crack than AU!). As for the SatAM/Archie characters, though, I can calm your nerves, that definitely wasn't Sally who was hanging around with that little group of racists - technically, Alicia is the name of her mom, yes, but it's also the name of her 'evil' counterpart from Anti-Moebius (that world where Scourge comes from). I can't see the real Sally *ever* condoning that kind of ideology, that's for sure! She might show up yet, though! ;) More Sonic definitely to come (hey, it's only his second day at school!) Meanwhile, we'll get back to the nice characters :3 Glad you liked, thanks for the (very enthusiastic) review! :D

**briana**: Hah, yeah, High School. College is much better :) But at least Shadow is getting the authentic teenage experience here...right?^^° (I have a feeling he doesn't appreciate it) Fiona trying to flirt with Sonic...hahah, yeah, she should probably be thankful he shut her down fast or else Amy would have gone ballistic! XD Glad you enjoyed it, hope you like this new chapter too!

**XxShadowxX:** Thanks! :D Hah, I'd like to think that Gerald and Maria managed to install enough decency in Shadow that he'd shut them right down, yes :p Shadow finding out about his murderous 'cousin' - weeeell, he's working on it. Not too long now, I promise :p

**Katz4**: Eyyup, this school is competing with Prof. Xavier's school for the gifted for the mortality rate of its students XD Fiona mentioning how Sonic wasn't able to help much nowadays...ahh, you picked on something interesting there. It seems like our hero might be running into some trouble with his abilities. Not like that will stop him from still trying to help out of course...especially 'helpless' newbies ;p And aw, glad you like my version of Sonic! I try to emulate the one from JudasFm's stories :) As for the characters I borrow from other universes, naw, I don't think there's anything you need to know that won't be given in the story anyway - anyone who would have known their names would probably have gone 'noooo, Shadow, don't sit at their table, those guys are _dicks_!' - buuut, they managed to demonstrate that in their introduction anyway, I think :p I try to make all my fics accessible for everyone :)

**DEV**: Hah, nicht ganz, der Junge ist zwar nicht Robotnik, aber...nah dran :p Wenn Shadow rausfindet, wen er die ganze Zeit da runterbürstet, weeeelll...also, ich werd Spaß haben, die Szene zu schreiben. XD Fiona und Konsorten - yeah, die hinterlassen wirklich einen schlechten Nachgeschmack :/ Wenigstens hat Shadow ihnen schnell klar gemacht, was er davon hält. An so einem Universum rumzubasteln mit verschiedenen Spezies macht tatsächlich viel Spaß - lustigerweise hab ich zwar schon öfters Sonic Fanfic Universen gesehen, wo Sonic und .co entweder laut Gesetz 'Bürger zweiter Klasse' (also so wie Schwarze vor den 1960ern in den USA) sind, ODER das Gegenteil, also Speziezismus gar kein Thema, und Menschen und Anthros leben ohne irgendwelche Probleme zusammen. Ich wollte es mal mit einem Mittelweg probieren - auf dem Papier schon gleiche Rechte, aber im wirklichen Leben trotzdem Spannungen, also so wie bei uns momentan. Und das Rumüberlegen, wie alles wohl funktionieren würde, wenn man n halben Meter kleiner und entweder mit Fell oder Federn überzogen wäre, macht natürlich auch Spaß :D Hoffe, das neue Kapitel gefällt, wie immer vielen Dank für den Kommentar!

**Who:** As long as there's reviews, no worries, I will :D Thanks for commenting!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5: Shopping for Trouble<strong>

"Oh hey, Shadow. Where were you during lunch? I didn't see you, I would have liked to properly introduce you to the rest!"

Shadow turned around at the by now familiar, cheerful voice of his class room neighbour. Amy had caught up to him in the corridor after he had left the canteen a while ago and mostly spent the time staring through a window, wondering whether he shouldn't quit this whole thing and go home early. Now the pink hedgehog was expecting an answer, though, so he considered briefly what would likely be the most innocuous one he could give her.

"...outside. I felt like taking a walk. "

The lie slid out easily. In truth, he just really didn't want to talk about his experience with the other group, even if the memory still set his teeth on edge. But, somehow, admitting to Amy that he had eschewed her and her friends' company just to sit with people who turned out to be a much worse alternative, he felt...actually slightly embarrassed. Especially since by now he couldn't help but wonder if...

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure! What's up?" Amy's expression was still one of innocent cheer. If she had caught on that something was troubling Shadow, it didn't show.

"What do you think of humans?"

"Eh?" She blinked, clearly taken aback as she was trying to figure out where that question had come from. "Um. Not...much? I, er, mean I guess I'm not a fan of some of them walking around here, but the ones in the orphanage were really decent and you can hardly blame their entire species for a few bad apples, can you?" she gave a lop-sided smile. "I mean, in the end they're just people like everyone, I think. Why?" she asked, jade eyes curious, before immediately sucking in a sharp breath and catching his arm, concerned. "Wait, Shadow, did someone say something about your family?!"

"Wha-? No! No," Shadow tried to let his voice calm the obviously worried girl, shaking his head. "It's all fine. I was just wondering."

"Oh...right. Okay, then," Amy nodded, stepping back and releasing his arm, giving him a slight smile again. "Sorry, guess I overreacted. Like Mighty said, this school can be a little rough." She gave an embarrassed little laugh. "But, listen, I have to go to class now, but if anybody ever _should_ say something, just tell me who, and I'll clobber them for you, okay?" She gave him a small wink and a wave and then was already away, jogging to wherever her next course was and leaving Shadow standing in the corridor with a slight feeling of sudden incompetence.

Then he sighed, also turning to walk toward his next class, and privately wondered whether it was a tendency of _all_ hedgehogs at this school to try and involve themselves in others' lives, or whether that was just the pink and blue ones.

xxx

The bell had already rung for the next period to begin, but Shadow still hadn't found his class room. Today was his first officially designated 'Advanced Placement ' Theoretical Physics class, and since nobody else in his home room group took them, he had been stuck searching for the blasted class room on his own. A search that had already lasted over ten minutes and had taken him past the same corridor over three times.

"Seriously, how hard can it be to find the _damn_ computer room?!"

Growling in frustration and feeling like the universe was laughing at him – who had designed the layout of this school, this was worse than the engine rooms aboard the ARK - the black hedgehog turned another corner and wanted to stride down the new corridor, but then stopped himself abruptly when his eyes finally fell on the door he had been looking for. He opened it.

Then he stepped back again, closed it, looked at the sign next to the door, looked at his schedule sheet again, and frowned. This _should_ be the right room, but...

Shadow opened the door again and poked his head inside.

"Excuse me. I'm looking for the Advanced Placement class for Theoretical Physics. Do you know where that is?"

"Oh, you're exactly where you should be! It's right here, only Professor Pickle is always late! Come on in!" the sapient inside informed him cheerfully.

Shadow scanned the room again.

No, there was definitely just a single guy in here and nobody else.

A single guy, who was...

"You're, like, _eight,_" Shadow pointed out.

"I'm almost nine!" The little golden fox immediately shot back, for a moment puffed up in indignancy like an insulted chicken, but the next second he was already blushing a little and then rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish smile.

"Uh, I mean. Yeah, I'm only eight, but I'm already really good at maths and physics 'n stuff." He stuck out a small gloved hand. "I'm Miles, but everybody calls me Tails. It'll be nice to have a class mate!"

"Tails," Shadow repeated, shaking the hand more out of ingrained training that Maria had done with him, but at the same time he couldn't help but stare at what had undoubtedly been the two namesakes for that designation.

_A mutant?_

"Yeah, there's two of them. I had to get my nick name from somewhere, right?" the fox gave another small smile. "But no worries, I like it much better anyway. It makes life easier than walking around with a human name." He cocked his head. "Well. I mean, Amy has one, too, but boy, you do NOT want to make fun of her for that..."

"Right," Shadow managed with a frown. He still couldn't quite get over the fact that the population of this school somehow managed to get weirder with every single class. Now Tails was staring at him with an expression of concentration.

"Say...are you maybe in Sonic's class?"

"...yes." _Unfortunately_. "Why?"

"Oooh, so then that's you!" Tails exclaimed. "Only Sonic said that they had gotten a new student and he had a giant stick wedged up his - uh, I _mean_, I mean, not a _stick_, obviously, uh-! " Tails had cut himself off mid-sentence and was now stammering, the kit apparently suffering not only from two tails but also from a serious case of foot-in-mouth-disease, and Shadow sighed.

"Never. Mind."

Tails frowned, again apparently trying to recall something from memory.

"Sorry. Antoine said your name was..._Château_?" He looked at Shadow curiously. "Are you French?"

"It's _Shadow,_" Shadow grated. "Shadow Robotnik."

And then, when Tails (predictably) also stared at him in dumbstruck amazement, Shadow couldn't have been more glad when finally the door opened, and a decidedly human teacher walked in, and the only weird thing about that guy was that he smelled faintly of cucumbers. Shadow thought he could live with that.

xxx

"Maria?"

The girl turned. The two unlike siblings had been sitting quietly for the last half an hour, working on some homework in the living room of their home, neither of them saying anything much. Shadow had been somewhat subdued and taciturn ever since he had gotten home from his second day at school, but since Maria hadn't managed to get much out of him when she asked, she had decided not to push. Usually, with her brother she mostly just had to wait until he was done mulling something over (or, in some cases, just stopped sulking).

"Yes?"

"How is it with sapients and humans at uni?"

That was kind of an odd question. Maria frowned. "It's okay, as far as I can tell. It's like, maybe 40% sapients, if I had to put a number on it. Why?"

"Do they get along with the humans?" Shadow asked, ignoring her question. He also wasn't meeting her eyes.

"I think so, mostly," Maria replied, before finally leaning in, now concerned for her brother. "Why are you asking me this, Shadow? Did something happen?"

The black hedgehog's lips became a thin line. "No, nothing. It's just...some of the sapients at school don't seem to like humans much."

Maria let out an exhale. "I see. Doesn't seem to be too different on either side, to be honest." She sounded slightly sad.

Now Shadow finally looked up. "What? Have you met them, too? Did someone say things _to_ you?"

"Shadow. No personal vendettas while we're trying to be a normal family," Maria reminded him sharply, but then sighed. "No. Nobody said anything to me. Like I said, in my case it wasn't sapients but humans who made comments." She looked down on her notes, her voice quiet. "Two of my professors are a lynx and a monkey. Some students said some ugly things about them. Not many. But some."

"Some sapients also blame our family."

There were a few moments of quiet in the room. Maria's hands had tightened fractionally on the paper she was holding, but it didn't look like she knew how to reply to Shadow's statement. It didn't take too long for Shadow looking at his sister's pained stare before he exploded anyway, leaping to his feet in one angry instant.

"I've had it up to _here_, Maria! Him ruining our name! And he's _still_ at it, apparently!"

"Shadow..."

"No! I'm not putting up with it! We didn't go through all the crap that we did just to deal with more when we finally made it to Earth!"

"Grandfather said he'd write him a letter..."

"Well, then the good Doctor better reply that he's gonna step down from the evil genius front immediately, or else I'll _see_ to it that he does," Shadow growled. He also made a mental note to look up who that sapient hero was supposed to be who had stopped Maria's cousin in the past and maybe think about contacting him, wherever he was. Seeing the unhappy face of his sister, that train of thought took a slight back seat, though, as Shadow immediately wished he hadn't brought up the topic at all if it made Maria look like that. The Ultimate Lifeform sighed.

"Hey. I'm not saying I'm going to run off in search of an epic battle tomorrow. I'm willing to wait to see if there is a way to reason with the guy, okay?" He reached out to cover his sister's hand with one of his own.

At that, Maria finally let see a little smile again. "...okay. Glad to hear it. And _if_ you decide to go confront him," she then said, and Shadow was for a moment nothing but glad to finally see that familiar spark in her eyes gleam up just for a moment, "then you better tell me first, buster, because if that goes south, _someone_ will have to save your spiky bum."

"I'd like to cordially inform you that none of my spiky body parts have ever been in need of saving, thank you very much."

"Right, right, of course," Maria replied, a small, indulgent smile lighting up her eyes as she grinned at her brother. "Then how about _you _save_ me, _namely from having to go shopping alone. Grandfather said we needed to stop living off takeaway, so we need to stock the pantry. You up for it?"

The question, of course, was superfluous – Shadow would have been up for jumping into a pit of rabid possums if it was only Maria asking the question – but the Ultimate Lifeform still managed to give a groan of at least token resistance (as is, of course, the duty of all siblings asked to share household chores). He stood up from the table and followed her to the door. In truth, he was more than happy that Maria was so energetic and full of life after she had been healed from her neuro-immune disease – even if it was at times just a_ little_ exhausting.

"Where are we going shopping?" he asked, as they stepped outside the house.

"Just around the block. I googled the nearest supermarket, it's a human one, but it should have all we need."

"A human supermarket? How do you know? Do they advertise that at the door?"

"Nah, I looked up a list of sapient and human chain stores in Station Square while I was at it and this one was under the human section. But we really have to go to one of the sapient ones soon, Shadow, we can learn so much about your culture!"

"Maria, my 'culture' consisted of a bunch of cells in a petri dish."

"Hush. Oh, here we go..."

In front of them, the two large, glass sliding doors opened, and the youngest members of the Robotnik family stared for a moment in wonder at the sight of endless rows of products lined up on shelves reaching consumer heaven. Staring them in the face were more colours than in a LSD fantasy, and (Shadow suspected) about as much addictive chemicals probably contained in the food.

"Wow," Maria breathed. "I didn't expect them to be..._this_ large..."

"Hey, move it, country bumpkins, you're blocking the door!"

"Oh, sorry!" Maria yelped, abruptly stepping aside to make way for a harried-looking rat father with what seemed like a litter of at least six kids in tow. Shadow's eyes still narrowed.

"_What_ did you just call-?"

"Shadow. No killing in your first week. Help me get a shopping cart."

xxx

It was a short while later (with no accidental murders anywhere) that Maria was happily pushing a trolley through the breakfast aisle with one hand, glancing at a neatly written list held in her other.

"Oh, Shadow, this is exciting. We're shopping like a normal family!"

"No. This market is stupid. Half of the food is too high up."

"Huh? Oh," Maria managed, glancing down at her somewhat frustrated-looking brother. Shadow was scowling up at a glass of potted cherries on the top shelf as if the fruit had done him a personal affront.

"Right, yeah, that is inconvenient – but hey, look," she pointed at the same rat father that had pushed them out of the entrance, "he's got one of the smaller shopping carts for sapients, and they seem to have little ladders -"

"I am _not_ going to use a 'little ladder'!"

"Well, then you'll just have to get the food from the lower shelves," Maria continued, unperturbed. "Which, er, brings me to my next question. I actually just simply put down 'cereal', but I had no idea there would be so many kinds..."

In truth, the two friends were staring at the giant supermarket, now slightly overwhelmed. It wasn't quite as easy to decide on which food to buy if you weren't really used to even having two alternatives – not to mention a whole aisle just comprised of breakfast cereals, half of which had worryingly grinning cartoon characters on the boxes.

Shadow's eyes narrowed. "Well, we're not getting that one. I distrust this tiger."

"Let's...let's just start with produce, okay?" Maria asked. "I think I'm at least sure we'd recognize an apple when we see one..."

xxx

In the supermarket, it was easy to lose track of time, Shadow noted. He wasn't wearing a watch, but by the time they approached the cashiers, the sun outside was already going down. They had ended up buying a lot, though – the large bag Maria had brought, which was nearly as tall and wide as Shadow himself, was already filled close to bursting as she piled the last items on.

"Uh," the teenage boy behind the register managed as Maria was clumsily pulling a few bills out of her purse, trying to find the notes she needed to pay the correct amount, "are you...are you _sure_ you'll be able to carry all that?"

"Oh yes, thank you, we'll be fine."

"Only because it looks like that must weigh at least a 100 pou-"

Next, of course, the boy's eyes boggled when Shadow simply lifted the giant bag over his head, apparently not struggling much more as if it had been a ball of cotton. Maria smiled.

"Have a nice day!"

xxx

"Are you sure you want to carry it all alone? I could take something, too."

"Maria, I could lift a middle-sized bus. I think I can manage the groceries," Shadow said, but he accompanied it with a slight smile to indicate that his mood was slowly picking up now that they were out of the busy store. It had occurred to the hedgehog often enough that his sister had the patience of a saint on valium when it came to dealing with her grumpy brother, but that didn't mean she didn't deserve him treating her better than that.

"Well, good to know in case I ever want to buy a public transportation vehicle," the blonde girl smiled back at him, blue eyes shining lightly in the last rays of the setting sun. "Still, the next shopping trip should be easier I think, now that we have all the basic-"

"Shh. Be quiet for a minute."

It spoke for Maria that she fell silent the moment Shadow had uttered the words, only staring at him with questioning eyes. The black hedgehog had frozen, still holding the bag aloft, but his ears were swiveling around, turning as far back as they could.

"Shadow," Maria whispered, "what-?"

"Stay here. Don't move." Shadow placed the shopping bag down beside him near soundlessly, then glanced briefly around. They were back in their residential neighbourhood, the street deserted of both cars and pedestrians. Fading orange light already let the houses, trees and fences cast long shadows, the first window lighting up inside, even if the street lanterns were still dark.

"If you see anything strange, go to one of the houses. I'll be right back."

"Shadow, _wait_-!" Maria called, but by then, Shadow had already taken off, skates blazing beneath his feet as he shot down the street and into the small alley where he had heard the strange sound coming from.

"Okay, whoever you are, come out _now_-"

Shadow stopped himself when he saw the alley was completely deserted. Instinctively, his head also shot up to scan the sky above, but there was nothing to be seen. Something like a growl came from his throat.

"Shadow?" Predictably, there were also already the steps of his sister catching up.

"Maria," Shadow turned around, striding quickly out of the alley. "I thought I told you to _stay._"

"Yes, but you didn't say anything why," Maria protested. "I thought you might need help – well, that, or a witness," she added with a slightly more concerned tone. "Please don't just run off like that."

"I thought I had heard something. Some sort of motor. A noise that was following us."

"But the street was completely deserted."

"That is why I was concerned, yes," Shadow cast a last, suspicious glance back into the alley. "I _think_ I also registered some sort of Chaos energy, but it was...shielded, somehow."

"Someone or something employing a cloaking device?" Maria frowned.

"Possibly," Shadow said, at the same time walking back to their abandoned shopping bag. "But you know more about that technology than me. Could you possibly build something that could disable a mechanism like that?"

"Erm. I'd have to ask grandfather, I mean, I know about the theoretical concepts, but the practical engineering...was never my forte. That would take some time." Maria chewed her lip thoughtfully. "And I mean, I _did_ want to join the university's chess society, too..."

Shadow only avoided a sweat-drop with difficulty. "Yeah. But don't you think that whatever was just stalking us is a _little_ more important than that?"

"Shadow. Are you even _sure_ it was actually somebody stalking us?"

"...no," Shadow admitted, picking up the groceries again, eyes narrowing. "But _if_ they are, I want them to be in for one hell of a surprise..."

_To be continued..._

* * *

><p>There you go, hope you liked! Anyone who's missing Sonic already (no worries, he'll be back next chapter:p), I can recommend having a look at my newest Sonic-and-Tails-centric 'venture, <em>Where the Wild Things Are<em>, which is now up! As always, hope you enjoyed, and if you read, please review :D


End file.
